The 2017 tax season continued its pattern of reducing the gap with last year's results. And for the season through March 17, the number of returns received by the Internal Revenue Service were down 5.5 percent year ago from results through March 18, 2016. That was an improvement from the season through March 11 when returns filed were 6.8 percent from 2016 totals.

A Kansas City, Kan., area tax preparer have been accused of utilizing S corporations to file fraudulent tax returns. The government wants to shut down the tax business Everett Bias and his company Integrity Solutions Tax Consultants for a variety of alleged abuses, saying 117 of 130 returns examined had abuses.

Each week in tax season so far has produced an improvement in filing results. The statistics the Internal Revenue Service released for the season through March 10 followed the same pattern with total returns received now 6.8 percent behind last year's comparable period ending March 11, a improvement of 1.5 percentage points.